


love will drive us

by basha



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:27:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23190163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basha/pseuds/basha
Summary: Lex, Ethan, and Hannah over the years.
Relationships: Hannah Foster & Ethan Green, Hannah Foster & Lex Foster, Lex Foster/Ethan Green
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	love will drive us

Hannah’s first word is “Lex.” She burbles it happily, sitting in her high chair, which Lex has crazy glued and duct taped into relative safety, while eating Cheerios one by one. Lex, who has been making herself a PB&J across the table, drops the knife and runs around to crouch in front of her baby sister. 

“Say that again,” Lex demands. 

“Lex,” Hannah replies. Her big, brown eyes dance with amusement. Lex swears everyday that Hannah’s the smartest person she’s ever met. 

“Again!”

“Lex Lex Lex!” Lex jumps to her feet and kisses Hannah on top of her head. Then she grabs Hannah out of the chair, holds her on her hip, and rushes to the back of the trailer. Their mom is the only one who gets a room to herself, while Hannah and Lex sleep in the living room on the pullout couch. Lex has been told a million times not to go in there uninvited, but surely (surely) this is a special occasion. Lex barges through the door. 

“Mom!” Lex says. “Mom, listen to this!”

“What do you want?” Mom groans. She’s awake already, which means that this is a Good Day. She’ll probably even go into work. 

“Hannah,” Lex prompts gently, “say to Mommy what you were saying to me earlier. Go on, Banana.” Hannah smiles up at her adoringly. 

“Lex!” Hannah says happily. “Lex Lex.”

“What?” Mom asks bluntly, reaching onto her bedside table for a cigarette. She lights up. “What are you trying to show me?”

“She’s saying Lex,” Lex says, quietly, excitement diminishing. Hannah catches onto the mood change and sticks her thumb in her mouth. 

“Wex?” Hannah asks softly.

“Sounds more like ‘eh’,” Mom says. “You’re getting all excited for nothing. Now get the fuck out of my room and go to school. And don’t forget to drop off the little genius with Mrs. H.”

“Okay,” Lex says dully. She turns around and leaves the room. Once the door is closed, she holds Hannah up until they’re eye-to-eye. “I know what you said, Banana,” she whispers. “I’m so proud of you.” 

(Hannah’s second word is “Webby.”)

Lex first meets Ethan Green in lunch detention. She’s in the sixth grade; he’s in the fifth. She’s there because she clawed a girl in the eye for calling her “trailer trash”; he’s there because he ripped up a kid’s notebook for calling him “dumb.”

They hit it off right away. 

In the course of their brief conversation, they figure out that the house Ethan lives in with his mom and step-dad is only a few blocks from the trailer park where Lex lives. 

“You should come over,” Ethan suggests, pushing his marker stained fingers through his unruly hair. “I mean, not to my house. But if you get off the schoolbus with me, just, like, one stop early, we can go to the corner store near my house and get ice cream. Carlos, the guy who works there, let’s me put things on my mom’s ‘tab’. And there’s this cat there, Alice, you’d love her, she’s super fat. And maybe we can sneak into the movie theatre on the 14th.”

“That sounds awesome,” Lex says. “But I can’t. I gotta pick up my little sister, like, right after school.” Ethan shrugs. 

“We can stop there first.” Ethan says easily. “She like ice cream? And cats?”

They don’t actually hang out after school that day. Right after school, Ethan’s step-dad and mom pull up outside of school in an old, noisy car.

“What the fuck is this about you getting detention?” Ethan’s step-dad demands. “Get in the damn car.” Lex watches as Ethan climbs in. Right before they drive away, she gives him a little wave. 

But the next morning, Lex seeks Ethan out on the school bus. She shooes away the kid who was sitting there with a menacing look, then turns to Ethan with a winning smile. He smiles back, and she already knows not to say anything about the bruise on his cheek. 

“There’s this new movie about zombies that I really want to see,” she says. “We gotta get Hannah first, but she likes movies. You in?”

They’re kind of inseperable after that. 

One day, when Lex is 13 and Hannah is 4, Hannah comes down with a terrible fever. She wakes Lex up with her crying, and Lex knows right away that something is really wrong. Their mom tells Lex not to worry, ignoring her tears, and sends her off to school. Lex sneaks out of school after lunch, with Ethan on her heels. They run back to the trailer. When they get there, Lex finds her mom passed out in her bedroom. Hannah sleeps fitfully on the pullout. 

When Lex touches her forehead, it’s red hot. Her breath is ragged. 

Lex knows better than to wake their mom. She picks Hannah up, shushing her gently, and turns to Ethan helplessly. 

“What do we do?” he asks. Lex appreciates the “we.”

“We have to take her to the Urgent Care,” she says. “Have any money?” Pooling the money Ethan had in his pocket with the money in Lex’s emergency fund, they only have $56.75 between them. “It’ll have to be enough,” Lex says, resolutely. 

At Urgent Care, the doctor on duty asks Lex where their mom is as he takes Hannah’s temperature. The thermometer beeps before she answers, and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. 

“We have to get her to the emergency room,” the doctor says. “Now.”

Lex and Ethan get to ride in the ambulance on the way to the emergency room. Lex tries not to burst into tears when the paramedic takes Hannah away from her. They rush Hannah inside for treatment, but Lex and Ethan are told that they have to wait. Apparently, they are too young to handle something like this. They sit side by side in the waiting room, pressed side to side. Lex cries, and Ethan doesn’t mention it. 

There’s a TV in the corner of the room on silent. Lex and Ethan watch blankly. It’s tuned onto the news, but they’re doing a segment on Hollywood. The Oscars are going to air soon. The footage switches between scenic shots of California and stars walking red carpets. They show an aerial shot of the beach, with white sand and aquamarine sea and someone famous tanning. 

“Let’s go there someday,” Ethan says, voice low but sure. “You, me, and Han, when she gets better.” Lex digs her fingers into his arm. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I’d like that.”

The summer before Lex starts high school, their mom invites the latest in her endless string of boyfriends to move in with them. It freaks Ethan out even more than Lex, but they both manage to keep their cool for Hannah’s sake, who sticks to them like glue all summer long. (“Shouldn’t we find her some friends her own age?” Ethan suggests, but only once, because Lex doesn’t talk to him for almost a week.)

It’s not a bad summer. They play Manhunt and hide-and-seek with the other kids in the trailer park, and every now and then an older kid will bust open the hydrant on the corner and they’ll all run and play in the water until the Hatchetfeild fire department comes to shut it off. Most of the time, “Webby” even lets Hannah play too. She’s a really good hider. 

Their mom’s boyfriend turns out to be okay. He’s not great or anything, but he doesn’t hit them or yell at them, and he makes his own money, and every now and then he’ll hand Lex a five dollar bill and tell her to take Hannah down to the ice cream truck and not come back for a little while. Lex and Ethan decide not to put any more itching powder in his clothes.

At school that year, Lex and Ethan both try out for the musical. It’s one of the only things the high school and middle school do together, and, better yet, they’re both pretty good at it. That first year they both only get parts in the ensemble, but some of the cool older girls show Ethan how to put on eyeliner and Lex even gets to say a line when a sophomore drops out. 

That’s also the year they start dealing. 

It’s a weird sort of agreement Lex works out with her mom’s boyfriend. Mark gets some high quality stuff, none of the oregano and watered down vodka some of the older kids peddle. Lex sells to the high school, Ethan to the middle school. They split the profits 40/60 with Mark. Technically Ethan and Lex split their cut 50/50, but they don’t make much of an effort to delineate. Most of their money goes into the coffee can Ethan hides under his bed. They both know they’re saving up for something, but they don’t put a name to it. 

Mark sticks around for a year and a half before disappearing. Lex has been warning Hannah not to get attached for a year, but Hannah cries anyway. A week of Bad Days follows. Their mom is an absolute wreck, drinking herself into a stupor and only waking to drink again. After a week, her boss calls to tell her that she’s fired. Hannah sits up late at night, and studies their finances in the bathroom, using the flashlight on her phone. 

“We’re fucked, E,” she tells Ethan the next day. They’re both cutting class, hanging out behind the school, partaking of what remains of their product. 

Ethan pulls a lighter out of his leather jacket. It’s too small for him, and falling apart at the seams. Lex makes a mental note to shoplift him a new one. She’ll do it at the same time that she grabs Hannah some new socks.

“We’re going to be okay,” Ethan promises, voice deep and sincere. Lex takes a drag of the joint so she doesn’t have to answer right away. When she said “we” she only meant herself and Hannah, but she likes that Ethan automatically assumes he’s included.

“I hate it here,” Lex says, surprised at the tremor in her own voice. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” Ethan puts his arm around her and pulls her in close. A tear slips down her cheek. 

“Then let’s run away together,” he says. “Anywhere you want to go.” Lex sniffles a little bit and passes him the joint. 

“That’s fucking stupid,” she tells him, but her mind starts to turn. 

In her junior year, she goes to juvie. 

They do a random check at school and find a few ounces of weed (which she had to go all the way to Clivesdale to find) in her locker. In the scheme of all of the illegal things she’s done, Lex finds it almost funny that the little bag is all they can get her for. She gets sentenced to a month.

The first time Ethan and Hannah visit, Lex almost doesn’t go to see them. When she does, even through the glass, it’s like the sun shining down on her after years underground. Hannah presses her hand to the glass on her side, so Lex does the same. Ethan lets Hannah use the phone first.

“Hey Banana,” Lex says, keeping her voice even. “Is today a Good Day or a Bad Day.”

“Good Day,” Hannah replies softly. “Webby says I get to see you.”

“Sure,” Ethan says, and he’s so close to Hannah that Lex can hear him faintly through the phone. “Give all the credit to Webby.” Lex laughs. 

“Can you put Ethan on for a second, Banana Split?” Hannah does so, then turns her attention to fiddling with the pins on Ethan’s jacket. It looks really good on him. Hannah pretends she didn’t notice that. 

“Thank you,” she tells him. “I’ll pay you back for the bus fare and stuff when I get out of here.” Ethan looks genuinely offended. 

“Fuck off, Foster,” he says. “That’s not how this works and you know it.” Lex is suddenly, wildly overcome with a desire to kiss him. She is suddenly thankful for the wall of glass between them. “How are you holding up?” he asks. 

“I’ve been better,” she says. 

“I wish I could take you away from this place,” Ethan says. She knows he doesn’t just mean prison. He means Hatchetfield. He means all of it. 

It’s archaic, but Lex and Ethan write each other letters. She tells him about the gross prison food, the mean girl she bunks with, the book she reads. Ethan tells her about Hannah, and about his dreams. 

_ Last night, I dreamed that you and me and Hannah were on the beach somewhere. I kept trying to get you to come into the water but you wouldn’t. Finally, Hannah got in, and you swam out after. We were so happy, the three of us, in the sea. One day I’ll take you there for real.  _

She falls asleep clutching the letter to her chest. 

When she gets back, she resolves to change. She re-enrolls in school, even though with all the time she’s missed she’s technically in the same grade as Ethan now. She gets a job at Toy Zone. She stops smoking, stops drinking, stops dealing. She does her homework and helps Hannah with hers when she can. She stops looking Ethan in the eye so she won’t be tempted to kiss him anymore.

She’s still not the world’s best student, but shop class holds up her GPA. That is, until Mr. Houston has a “family emergency”. They cancel shop class. She flunks out. 

When he gets her text, Ethan cuts geometry and meets Lex out in the parking lot, where she leans, smoking, against his old jalopy. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Lex’s face is a mask. She takes a long drag, then throws open the passenger side door violently. 

“Drive.” He gets in, starts up the shaky engine, and pulls out of the parking lot. 

“Where--?”

“Who fucking cares,” Lex says. “Who fucking--!” She bites down on her lip, hard, as tears start to roll down her face. He turns down a back road.“I’m fucked, Ethan, I’m so fucked.” She starts to sob. He drives, jaw clenched, until they’re parked near the edge of town, where concrete meets the lake. He pulls Lex into a hug, pushing her head against his chest in a way she finds surprisingly comforting. He holds her until she’s stopped crying. She pulls away first. 

“They flunked me,” she says, voice hollow. “So now I’m just another high school dropout who will never leave the piece of shit town I was born in. I thought...I always thought maybe we’d be able to get out. But I was just...I’m a fucking idiot.”

“Let’s leave,” Ethan says. Lex looks him square in the face. 

“What?”

“We don’t need anyone’s fucking permission,” he says. “We don’t need their fucking diplomas. Let’s get out of Hatchetfield ourselves.”

“Pretending we’re gonna run away isn’t actually a solution to any of our problems!” Lex retorts, suddenly full of fury. Ethan matches her fire, but not her anger. 

“So let’s not pretend!” Lex’s mouth snaps shut. Ethan grabs both of her hands in his, the picture of sincerity. “I’m serious, Lex. We’ve been saving for years, I’m sure your boss will give you more hours. Think of anywhere in the world, and we’ll get there.” Lex takes a deep breath. 

“What about California.”

“Perfect,” Ethan says. “Let’s get to California.”

“Okay,” Lex says. She drops his hands. Then she grabs his face and pulls him into a kiss, hard. She bites down on his lip, and he smiles into her mouth. 

They don’t tell Hannah right away. They don’t want to upset her, and they want to make sure that she wants to go as much as they want to take her. They wait for a few weeks, until their mom is working the night shift at her new job. They have a sleepover in the living room of the trailer, with popcorn and ice cream for dinner. Ethan lets Hannah paint his nails, something they’ve been doing steadily since Ethan got big enough to hit his step-dad back.

“Looks great, Banana Split,” Ethan says as Hannah sticks little gems to his nails. 

“Hannah,” Lex interrupts. “We have to talk to you about something. We’re--”

“Fucking?” Hannah asks, innocently blinking up at Lex and letting a glob of polish fall on the couch. 

“Hannah!” Lex shouts. “No!” She shares a look with Ethan. “I mean...not the point.”

“It’s okay,” Hannah says. “Webby told me.”

“That’s...I’m actually very glad you’re okay with that,” Lex says. “But what I have to say is even bigger. How would you feel about coming with me and Ethan to California? Like, forever?”

“No mom?” Hannah asks. 

“No mom,” Lex replies slowly, unsure if that’s a pro or a con. “Just you and me and Ethan. California’s nice. There are beaches and Hollywood and--”

“I want to come,” Hannah says. “Take me to California, Lex.”

“Yeah, Banana,” she says, pulling Hannah into a tight hug. “I will. I promise.”

She spends the next year working at Toy Zone with her mind fixed, resolutely, on California. Her boss tells her to stop daydreaming. 

“I don’t daydream,” she tells him. It’s a lie. 

A month or so before Christmas, Ethan tells her that he thinks they could get a lot of money for the new ugly green doll thing coming out on Black Friday. She does the math in her head. 

“We’ll leave as soon as we’ve sold it,” she decides. “Tell anyone interested that it’s cash only.”

“Of course,” Ethan says, with a smile so cocky she has to kiss it off of him. 

“God, Ethan,” she says softly, leaning into his chest. “We’re gonna be so happy there. I can feel it.” 


End file.
